Consecration & Redemption - Leviticus 27

Chapter 27 is the last chapter in Leviticus and has to deal with one of the ways that the temple is funded, consecrating property and people to the Lord. It’s also important to note that at the time when this principle was first given, the Israelites were still wandering in the wilderness so they were using the tabernacle instead of the temple that would be built in Jerusalem under Solomon. I don’t really understand this concept that much, from what I gathered from TB this was a way that the temple made money to support itself and their priests but was also a way for the people to focus God and learn the principles of consecration and redemption. TB gave the example of consecration and why people would do it from the saying, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” Having operated out of foxholes myself, I don’t think that that statement is true, but I digress. He also referenced a Burt Reynolds movie where the actor swims out to sea to kill himself but when he gets to the point of no return he realizes that he doesn’t want to die and bargains with God “If you save me, I’ll give up everything I own and follow you.” Then as he gets closer to shore, it changes to “I’ll give up 90% of what I own,” to at some point he says “God, I’ll split it with you,” and finally when he gets back to shore, he says, “God thanks for getting me back, if you ever need anything, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.” It was pretty funny to listen to. So I think that this consecrating someone or something to God was the Hebrews way of trying to curry God’s favor to get themselves out of trouble. I’ve never understood this concept because God’s going to do what He’s going to do, and we should all be acting right all the time anyway, but maybe it’s one of those human nature things that I don’t understand.

Someone is in trouble and consecrates something or someone to God so that He’ll help them out of their bad situation, but then they get out of trouble, this chapter talks about how they are able to redeem themselves, their animals, or their stuff from the temple. The whole chapter is just setting forth rates for redemption. For people, an adult male is redeemed at 50 shekels, which I have no idea who much money that is but TB gives some perspective saying that at this time, the average wage was around 1 shekel per month so if someone wants to redeem themselves, it took about 4 years worth of wages. An adult female was 30 shekels, which TB noted might have made some women upset thinking they weren’t worth as much as a man, but my thinking was that they probably earned less, had not unpaid familial obligations, and were able to be redeemed sooner, so this was just another way for Jesus to champion women, in my opinion. Kids from 5-20 were 20 shekels for boys and 10 shekels for girls, newborn to 5 years old, boys were 5 shekels and girls were 3 shekels. 60 years old and above, males were 15 shekels, and females were 10 shekels. If the person was way too poor to afford that then they could appeal to the priest who would make a determination about what was a fair price.

If animals or things were involved, then the redemption price would be whatever the market value is plus 20%. The only significant aspect of chapter 27 is that these shekels to be paid were variable because there was no centralized coinage that was minted at the time. So when it says “10 shekels” it meant, originally, a glob of metal that contained a certain amount of silver. TB went into the whole calculation about each shekel was 10 grains of silver by weight, but it varied based on how much other metal was in there, etc. As time went on and the temple was built, the temple priests took to minting their own temple coins and would only accept that as legal tender for temple transactions. This arrangement probably would have been fine except that they got greedy and would charge a large exchange rate, so millions of people would travel to Jerusalem multiple times per year to participate in temple ceremonies for which they had to buy temple approved animals for sacrifice that were already marked up in price and they could only buy those animals with temple approved coins which could only be purchased from priests at a hefty mark up as well. All these “marked up” prices went into the priests pockets so obeying the law of Moses and participating in these ordinances ended up costing the people so much money that was just out of pure greed from the priests. It’s no wonder that when Jesus showed up on the scene, he say the corruption and the priests exploiting the people for their own gain under the guise of religion, that He was furious enough to patiently braid a leather whip and then beat all their “exchange” equipment into pieces while driving them out of the area but also being careful enough to not hurt any of the animals or innocent people that were around at the time. It’s also no wonder that after He did this, the high priests who lost money and were called out for their hypocrisy were angry enough to want him dead. People have been killed for much less before. The people probably saw this and cheered because they were tired of getting ripped off by the priests and it would have shifted the power dynamic from the priests who were gouging them to the people who were tired of being victimized. Thus making Jesus popular with the people and hated by the priests whom he had cost money.

And now we are off to numbers, which is pretty exciting because I've been in Leviticus since February. It's noce to be making progress.